Hammerhead HMR989 Looks Like No Other PC I’ve Ever Seen

These days, it’s pretty hard to design a computer that really turns heads. This new computer from DARWINmachine definitely fills that bill.

The Hammerhead HMR989 is one of the most striking PC designs I’ve seen in a long time. Designed by Matthew Kim – whose prior experience includes racecar design and engineering – the system flips conventional computer design on its ear, putting the guts of the machine on the outside for everyone to see. And it looks good doing it.

Created predominantly from panels of Ecoresin plastic and CNC machined anodized blue aluminum sections, the HMR989 catches your eye the second you see it. The system is accented by bright blue LEDs and offers open-air cooling assisted by a dramatic Thermaltake “SpinQ” CPU cooler. The system runs on a 2.8Ghz Core i7-860 CPU, and an nVidia ENGTX460 graphics card. With its guts splayed out, you can easily swap out the 640GB front-load hot swap hard drive, while the system boots off its 40GB SSD.

It’s also got a CD/DVD drive and an extra hard drive bay for expansion. In addition, RAM and CPU can be easily upgraded by just popping open a quick-release panel.

Machines are hand-assembled one-at-a-time by Matthew, and individually numbered. Each HMR989 sells for $2899 (USD), and can be ordered here.

I produced and sold many servers. These hot swap bays fail for sure when mounted vertically. They work very good when mounted horinzontally

I know this as all 24 such hot swap bays failed. some failed after a year but they failed.

The problem is that to insert the harddisks, there need to be some free space. This space is a little too much to the sides. With the vibration of the hardrive it happens that the hd moves a little and the SATA connectors get bad connection.

If Matthew wants to continue with this particular design he should go the pure SSD route since the HDD’s will fail with the way they are mounted. Matthew needs to come up with a sister design which allows the HDD’s to sit horizontally within the unit.